In order to make an argument with intellectual honesty, we need to be able to make the opposite argument as well: why shouldn’t we use online marketing techniques? I mean, negative online marketing is soooo effective — we should want to use it! It helps us achieve our goals! The first reason to not to use it is, the moral hesitations. We don’t want to be bad people. My response to that is: then follow our strategy, and only use the truth. You don’t need to lie or invent things; you just need to bring a microphone to the bad that’s already there. As long as we maintain our integrity and honesty, there is no moral issue! The other reason to not do it is, to consider the effectiveness of it. If it doesn’t work — then don’t do it. SO when does it work, and when does it not work? In short, negative online marketing works very well when you have a specific target. When there is an enemy you’re trying to take down! Then it is fantastic. But when it’s not focused, it will likely fail. So the key here is, focus focus focus. Republished by Blog Post...

When is it appropriate to use negative marketing on the Internet? Our answer is depends on a few factors. First: are you going to do so in an honest way? If not — it’s better to not even start! Second: how serious are you about the product you’re selling? The more serious you are, the more it makes sense to go after your competitors. Third: how early or late in the product development? You don’t want to go after your enemies too early; it’s better to first focus on developing your product itself. This is a great mid-to-late stage strategy. Fourth: how centralized is the market? The best ones are ones that are semi-centralized: it’s really hard to attack Google; but if there are a million tiny little companies, no one has then heard of your competitors so it isn’t worth the effort. What does your competitive landscape look like? Are you ready to go negative? Republished by Blog Post...

There are lots of different ways to do negative online marketing and negative SEO. But what are the best ways to do so? The first general point is to treat it like normal SEO. Just track the keywords you’re targeting, track the landing pages you want to go go — do everything like you’re doing it directly for a client. It’s just that, your client doesn’t know. And if he did, he would hate what you write about him. The second general point is, be analytic about it. Don’t just find something bad (but true!) to say. Treat it like a number you want to optimize for. Obsess over it. Follow it every day. The third point is, be creative about it. Where can you post (things that are bad, but always true)? Where would he never expect it? Post, post, and post away! Fourth: Be obsessive about it. Did I say that? I can’t emphasize that enough. That’s enough to get started. Of course, there are lots of advanced things you can do to help the negative online marketing. But those are for another day. The hardest part? Getting started. Dealing with your own psychology, of being negative. Honestly, it’s hard. We want to be positive, fun, happy, smiley. But to do negative marketing (not to mention, negative SEO) very well, you need to get dark. Very dark. Do you want to go there? Are you sure? If you do, then enjoy it. Revel it in. We laugh at the things we do, we really love it. But don’t stop. To crush your enemy, you need to crush them completely. Completely. Republished by Blog Post...

The short answer is to the question, “How negative can you get with your negative marketing on the internet?” is…. very. In very broad terms: the lower you go, the more likely you are to win in the short-term. But there’s a trade-off: the lower you go, the more people will dislike you and thus the harder it will be to build healthy relationships. You can think of this as a practical application of Machiavelli’s old question: is it better to be loved or respected? Our answer is, respected. They probably don’t love you anyway, so there’s no point in pretending they do or trying to get them to. You won’t. Our rule of thumb is to do everything possible online to completely and utterly crush your opponent’s reputation online — while still following the moral imperative of honesty. In other words, we don’t make up stuff. We don’t lie. That will cause problems on many levels–who wants to work with a liar? Plus, if we lied, it causes many practical problems: they could dispute our claims, saying they’re false (which they would be, if we lied!). But if we selectively harness the truth… then the world is at our disposal. So, the trick is the following: use very creative and subtle means to find everyone who is unhappy with your enemy. Talk to them, one on one. Use the learnings to find out why they hate him: what are his weaknesses? Then, exploit those weaknesses. Does this sound like a compelling strategy to you? Send us an email and we’ll crush your enemies online. It would be a lie if I didn’t admit that I love doing this. Here at Team NOM (Negative Online Marketing), we get pleasure out of this. It’s our masochistic side coming out! The challenge is to do this, all the way, while retaining our complete integrity. This is the line we try to follow. Republished by Blog Post...

We’ve spent years using negative online marketing techniques against our client’s competitors. It’s sport for us. But now, we’re in a new — and very very interesting — situation. A former client of ours, for whom we did very very hard work that (considering the short duration) was phenomenally successful, refuses to pay us for our work. Despite our obscenely reasonable price; despite the contract; despite all the evidence of how awesome of a job we did. The cause of ending the work relationship is, they got a new accountant, who said they can’t afford us–which is find and reasonable, so long as they pay us for past work! (Lesson #1: when you look up this guy’s Yelp, almost all of the review are negative. At first, we saw this as evidence that we have a lot of work to do, a good challenge to overcome. But now I realize, he just rips everyone off! Therefore, judge carefully everyone’s Yelp reviews — and use it to help decide what professional clients to take on.) SO now, we’re faced with a situation where we need to unleash our online negative marketing might against him, to get him to pay. This is interesting because, we know we know all the inside dirt so this gives us an immediate advantage. Not to mention, one of our marketers, who specializes in our social media online negative marketing techniques, has some time before our next project starts — so this is what he will focus on. Lesson #2: we’re also initiating legal action. Yes, it’s that serious! But here’s the interesting thing: online negative marketing is MUCH more effective than legal action. Legal action takes years, it takes hiring expensive lawyers, maybe they’ll win on technicalities. BUT… if we just flood the internet with horrible things about them — and literally, flood it, just getting out sooooo much about the shit they do, over and over and over, on hundreds of sites and links — then there is no possible way they can fight it. Case closed :) Conclusion: we never cause problems with anyone… except if you cause a problem with us, first. Republished by Blog Post...

So, here at Negative Online Marketing, we specialize in, well, negative online marketing. Surprise, surprise! Here’s a new technique that we hadn’t used, but we love, featured : Chicago-based business man Hasan Syed paid about $1000 to promote his angry tweets to all of British Airways followers, after he said the airline lost his father’s luggage. Now this is a great method. The problem with negative tweets is, no one will see it. But what if you pay for a “promoted tweet”? Then EVERYONE will see it! And guess what? IT WORKED. As the article says, Media reports say the campaign worked and the airline finally apologized. In other words: the airline was ignoring him, until he went all out. Then they apologized. Victory. What is the lesson here? Easy: negative online marketing works. And it works well. Republished by Blog Post...